(Jethal) Hello everyone, this is the Jethal Silverwing Show for July 26th, 2011.. I am you host, Jethal Silvering. With me as always, my love, my girl, the burning in my loins, the tailor of fine armors, the baker of cookies and the reason we have a mature audience warning at the top of the show, it’s Elquinjena!!

(Smed) And by the way I want to apologize, in advance, if you hear things in the background.. I’m doing this right from my house and one of my kids may jump in and do something obnoxious.. so sorry if you hear them yelling, that’s me dealing with life with 4 kids and a wife

(Jethal) Life with 4 kids and a wife, there could be some child abuse going on, on the Jethal Silverwing Show, which is, sadly, not uncommon.. You didn’t hear about the time I beat my computer to death, did ya?

(Smed) That’s a better way to put it, it was my idea originally, but Brad and Steve came up with the core ideas of it all

(Jethal) How difficult was that? I mean, coming up with a game.. basically the first of it’s kind, wasn’t it?

(Smed) No, yeah know.. it had many predecessors.. it had it’s roots kind of in a combination of DQ MUDs, Dungeons and Dragons, and there was Meridian 59, and Ultima Online, but when we started it in march 1996, Ultima hadn’t come online and those other games where very small.. so it was the first major scale MMO, beside UO.

(Smed) you know what, Meridian 59 had a lot going for it and it’s funny, you look back on that stuff now, and it really was a really cool game, but it was older and back then we surpassed it with a lot of features that it didn’t have then, but, honestly those early games where a lot of trial and error from teams who did some amazing stuff

(Elquin) I hate to say it but I couldn’t get into them.. I tried Meridian 59 and Ultima.. but it really wasn’t for me

(Jethal) and I can say that I never tried them at all.. I got my first computer that really belonged to me, in 1995, and I was into games like Phantasmagoria and I was caught up in America Online.. but, I was doing a lot of Live Action Role Play and stuff like that that, I mean.. EverQuest 1 (or just EverQuest) was really my first introduction into MMO’s

(Smed) wow, you see, I played quiet a bit of MMO (hard to call it a MMO now) called Cyber-Strike. That’s actually what gave me the idea to do online games.. I played the heck of it. When I got married in April of 1994, we hadn’t lived together before, and my wife saw the first months bill, from Genie back then, which was $3 per hour.. and my wife. it was like “ok, let me get this straight, you play an online game.. and it’s costing us $600 a month?” (wows from J and E).. it was an education.. I guess it worked out OK though.

(Jethal) I remember a friend of mine was in college ran his own.. I dont know what you’d call it.. it was text based, you’d dial in with a modem.. would you call that a MUD?

(Smed) Um, there’s MUDs and early BBS games.. I would classify them as MUDs today, but really they weren’t even good enough to call them MUDs.

(Elquin) you had so many turns, then you’d have to wait until the next day to play

(Jethal) yeah, pretty much.. OK let’s see what we got here.. we do have some questions from our audience, Elquin, while I’m organizing these, why dont you chat it up with Smed for a while..

(Elquin) Well the only thing I was gonna bring up, is the fact that, when you think about games back then, and you think about games now.. one of the biggest changes I’ve seen is the Dynamic Content of the game, where the players can actually influence the game. Like, the Othmir village.. you go in and do the quests.. things change, leadership changes, objects appear now when you finish the quests.. I think they started that with the pandas.. I think that’s amazing

(Jethal) You’re changing your online world, and that’s great.. the only problem I have is.. if you have a friend that logs in and goes “Hey.. I’m trying that quest you told me about the other day, but where’s the NPC you where talking about? where is he”.. and I go out to help him and I’m like “Well, I couldn’t tell you.. I cant see him anymore, but he SHOULD be right there.. I don’t know what to tell you”

(Smed) well it’s interesting that you mention that, cause really when EQ launched, there was no good source, immediately, to do all that.. you think about all the websites that are out there now, and all the pieces of content are there even before the content goes to patch.. and I gotta say, I personally think that’s sad.. it’s great for newbies, but it’s also bad when the sense of mystery is lost when literally in the patch notes, or in some website, every single quest is pre-listed.

(Elquin) that’s why all the new stuff, I will try until I get stuck, then I go “ok, it’s time to find out where I’m supposed to go”.. majority of the time, lately, most of the quests I’m doing are very intuitive. they sort of point you in the right direction anyways.

(Jethal) that was one of the things in EQ2 that really ticked me off at first, I was running EQrangers.com at the time.. we were the first group to publish the walk through for Ranger Epic 2.0 for EQ1. it’s like.. we get here and I’m like “OK, it’s time to start the fletching guide!.. what shaft and nock, blah blah blah.. but wait I dont need to.. we have recipies.. OK let’s do THIS.. no, it’s already provided for us..” so, it IS good, I enjoy it very much, but you kinda put my website out of business though.

(Smed) well it’s interesting.. that’s an interesting comment.. and I’ll say that one of the larger mistakes we made going from EQ1 to EQ2 was, we made the decision early on that we were not going to be putting spoiler information out there. We wanted to have station players be a big website, and um, I think it kinda hindered the growth of a lot of the websites, I mean what we’ve subsequently thought through, is that it’s a very healthy think, for the fan sites to help put those things out there for people

(Elquin) so players can put out tips and tricks along with with they got too

(Elquin) that always sounds more helpful than an actual guide. what do other players experience in doing this.. what other suggestions do they have. yea know

(Jethal) that’s one of the reasons I like zam.com with what they’re doing.. they’ll put out a whole list, like the Golden Path.. you’d have the golden path, and you look at the individual quest.. zam says “BTW, if you do THIS quest at the same time.. you can knock them both out at the same time”

(Smed) it’s funny because, one of the core things we believe about the future about, not just EverQuest, but games in general.. is to make sure the interface is untuitive enough where you never feel stuck. for example, someone gives you a riddle.. and I think that’s ok if you present a challenge, but you dont want a challenge interface wise, because we did a poor job implementing stuff.. we want you to have a tough time concouring the monster, or figuring out something that’s part of the challenge to begin with.. not, fighting the interface.. “Look you gotta put these three things in exactly the right order” that’s not fun.

(Smed) The Text interface (Elquin groans) just the way we did questing.. it’s easy to look back on that now, but back then.. remember that it had it’s roots in MUDs, so a lot of that stuff was very text based to begin with

(Jethal) it was nice when the trigger words started showing up in brackets

(Elquin) *laughs* yeah, made it a little easier.. “What about [The Bow]?”

(Smed) you look on that and you’re like “wow that was amazing” and look on it now, and it’s kinda sad (chuckles)

(Jethal) I remember in EQ1, getting killed many times.. being a wood elf ranger, it was odd.. my roommate soul bound me in Rivervale, cause she figured it was a better place for experience at that point, and I kept doing the Goblin Necklace Quest to raise faction.. and you’d go see the Sheriff, and the trigger line was “AM I one with the wall”

(Jethal) no no, I typed “am I one” but if you didn’t hit enter first to get your cursor going.. you ended up attacking the sheriff

(Smed) *chuckles* that’s actually one of my favorite memories of EQ.. how easy it was to just, out right, die immediately.. one hit kills because you accidentally attacked a guard, cause you didn’t hit enter and hit “a” or something

(Smed) it’s kinda funny, the things to learn when, ya know.. by watching a bunch of players do it.. one of my favorite memories from EQ1.. remember that tree in black burrow? it was fun watching people just walk into it.. it’s entertaining watching people.. first thing they do “Hey, I can go in there”

(Jethal) hey look, it’s a hollowed out tree.. I can go in there! aaaaaaaaah! /splat

(Elquin) that’s had to be one of my uber rescue moments, I was a big buff level 20, and someone fell down the hole, and I went and got them, snuck them out of there.. I thought I was hero-esk

(Jethal) ok, ok, I admit it.. I used to sneak to the back side of that stump and drop something so it looked like alittle bag..

(Smed) I’m pretty old school when it comes to death mechanics.. I much preferred EverQuest 1’s. I know I’m in the minority on this, and I realise that .. but I believe in challenge.. the best moments in EverQuest was the corpse runs

(Jethal) that’s one of the things I really miss with EQ2.. like you said, some of the best times I had was with corpse runs.. EQ2 had the soul shards.. I miss those, and honestly I wish it where an option.. “Do you want to revive? do you want to corpse run?”.. but there has to be some sort of penalty, cause at this point there is NO penalty of death, except of the mending costs

(Smed) well, we’ve come to a place where Mass means Easy, and I don’t believe that’s true.. people are more than happy to have a challenge.. and the reason those runs where so great for me, wasn’t because I was doing it myself.. but getting someone to help. There’s nothing fun in losing a level to doing that

(Elquin) think of all the tactics surrounding corpse runs in all the zones too

(Elquin) I wanted to bring up, this past week we had the a lot of the world events happen, and the most amazing thing I saw was, we had, on the AB server.. 9 instances of the Great Divide going.. 2 instances of Thurgadin going, and I had a raid group situated in the first 1st instance in Great Divide.. and we had a few sitting there as anchor so we could come back to the same zone.. so we’re all going back and forth doing this fetching quest.. so all you could see was a sea of people, flying, running, jumping, to get down to get the beer and the picks, and it was incredible seeing all these people working together to bring it to a head.. and you sit back and think about all the people working together you think “wow”

(Smed) there’s been a lot of advances in that sort of thing, I think.. Warhammer did some good stuff there, we’ve done some good stuff.. Rift did some good stuff.. I really like the idea of server-wide (or zone-wide.. but in future games, we don’t plan on using zones, but geographical areas) that whole feeling of doing something with other people for a common good (or evil) is very fun

(Jethal) Serrest from Antonia Bayle comments.. Great Divide looked like Coruscant with all the all the air traffic going on

(Elquin) it’s funny.. I get an idea what an ant feels like.. we had a blast

(Jethal) alright, we have a list of questions given to us, submitted by our fans.. I have a few of myown first.

(Smed) I have four kids, Patrick is 16, Katherine 14, Emily 11, Rose 10.. my favorite moment is playing with Emily & Rose in FreeRealms for the first time.. we’ve got a lot of computers in the house, as you can expect.. my daughters where in two different rooms, with me in my study, and just logging in and chatting was magical, they were so cute – just playing with them was a lot of fun for me.

(Jethal) Do you ever get fangirls going “OMG it’s SMED!” like at fanfaire?

(Smed) I do not.. fangirls especially not.. at Fan Faire, people may recognize me and, probably because they’ve been there a few times and see me talk. people come up to me and it’s not quite “fanbois” it’s just people who love the game

(Jethal) I’m telling you.. I tweeted the first night of Fan Faire.. I’m walking down the hall.. and I Smed stopped me and where “oh, you’re Jethal..” and I was “OMG, Smed Recognized me!!” (laughter)

(Smed) *Chuckles* ya know, it’s kinda funny.. i’ve been doing this a long time now.. i’ve made a lot of games before I made online games, and it’s a different feeling.. when I was making sports games.. which a hated, I dispise sports games.. I hate football games, I hate hockey games, I hate baseball games.. I hate sports in general, actually.. I hate the outdoors..

(Smed) When I was making those kind of games, there was no such thing.. in online games, it’s different, you go some place where there are other fans like you, and, you get to know people and I love that.. I love that feeling, I love seeing people at fan faire who i’ve seen from year to year.. you know what’s cool about fan faire, people are bringing their kids, who wheren’t even born when our games launched

(Jethal) I noticed that when I was going around the main gallery at fan faire and I had the same thing to say to them “Oh Look, a level 1 raider.. oh look..”

(Smed) I will say, my favorite moment, by myself, in an online game.. and I will confess to your fans right now.. EverQuest2 is not my game of choice.. it’s actually Planetside (Gasps from Jethal).. I’m a shooter.. I love shooters.. i’ve played the living crap out of Planetside , and right after that I got into Battlefield 2, and played that competively.. and it was a 4 or 5 hour a night suck of my life, and playing in a clan, competively was just so much fun

(Jethal) that’s why you need to be a ranger on a PvP server, so you can go around shooting people from a distance

(Smed) that’s the other interesting thing.. I can not stand PvE.. I hate it.. and it bores me to tears.. the only thing I want, is that rush when someone attacks me out of nowhere.. I love cooperative PvE, that’s fun, but that’s the way I like to play personally.. the PvE enjoyment I get, like, playing Portal2 with my kids in Coop mode that was fun, or playing Starcraft 2 cooperatively on a team. that’s still a PvP experiance.. I’m just not wired for PvE

(Elquin) you’re not the only one i’ve heard say that.. it’s the unknown rush, when you play PvP, never knowing who’s gonna attack you next, sort of, edge.. that’s the game for them

(Smed) The game for me, is.. this generation of MMO’s.. and I’m being real specific.. the Mobs arent very smart, there’s agro.. but they dont give you the challenge that another player does. and that’s something we plan on majorly working on for our future products, but for now, it’s not the same as being ambused by five guys who want nothing more than to, just, trash talk you..

(Jethal) Coopendor of Bazaar Server (EQ2) asks.. Would it be posible, in the future, that we could tranfer adornments from one item to another – even if there is a small fee?

(Smed) So, it IS posible.. it’s not on the schedule. so tradeskillers make adornments, and if players can re-use their adornments, then that’s gonna take away from the tradeskillers.. so at this point in time, it’s something we’re not gonna do.

(Smed) yeah, Dave Georgeson is the go to guy, I can answer a fair amount of questions and luckily, i’ve gotten a lot of these answers from Dave

(Jethal) MrLightMan is asking some pretty specific questions.. (MrLightMan) I’d like to know about two things.. one being the Hard Light Powers and ETA on release.. and New Power sets..

(Smed) We have an update coming called “Fight for the Light”. it’s coming in the near future.. I dont want to give away the exact date.. cause in DCUO we cant say 100% when that it, cause we have to get approval to release the PS3 versions when they’re finished.. quite frankly the version IS ready, we have to get testing approval.

(Jethal) Flamewing (unknown) asks.. and for some odd reason, he thought he was gonna get banned from the forums for asking publically.. I dont know why.. Why is solo hunting (killing) experience so poor, compared to Instances, Raids and Dungeon Crawls, which typically need groups. Are there any plans to increase the overland experience?

(Smed) I wouldnt say it’s Poor.. to me it’s great.. just in groups, it’s better.. the reason I say that is.. our thinking behind eq1 and EQ2 is that.. these games are made to be a group experience, and we’ve gotten some knocks for that, and people say “well, it’s not as easy to solo” well look, you can solo, absolutely, in our game.. and it’s the whole game is better in group. so we reward that better.

(Elquin) well I think you’ve got that pretty well balanced.. if you want to solo you can, if you want to group, you can

(Jethal) Trista of the Antonia Bayle server says.. “What is the thought behind creating a 3rd form of the EQ Legacy, why not go more in the line of a new legacy”.. I believe she means, why didnt you go in the direction of WoW’s cateclism, or something like that

(Smed) The simple answer is, we have a completely knew idea for the world of Norrath.. we have something.. it’s not something we can easily build into EQ1 or EQ2.. these are games that people play.. like EQ1, yes it’s changed, but it’s still the same core game.. and EQ2 is still the same core game.. what we’re doing in the Next EverQuest.. the experience is going to be very different, revolutionary kind of different, and we want to make sure it has it’s own place.. and the Next EverQuest is not supposed to be set it a particular time.. think of the star trek movie.. the recent star trek was a reimagining of the startrek universe. with the same core characters, that sort of thing.. that’s kind of what we have in mind, but something really radical, and it’s gonna be really awesome

(Jethal) BTW.. Smed and I talked before the show.. and that’s pretty much all he can say about EverQuestNExt..

(Jethal) Now we have a question from “Chuina” from Crushbone.. “Can we give crafters a better chance to compete with the Store Bought appearance gear.. as a jeweler I feel I should be able to show others my skill”

(Smed) Our intent, with the store.. is to give variety, but not the best items in game.. the intent is to always make the crafters very relavant, expecially in EQ2.. we’ve put a lot of time into the crafting interface and into the tradeskills in general, and we want to make sure that they have some of the best stuff in game. I think the question is leaning toward saying “hey, we cant make as good of stuff” and what I would say is.. There’s probably always going to be in element of that feeling, but we always strive to put in awesome stuff for crafters to make them relevant in the game.

(Elquin) well, there was all that formal wear, when you build your faction up with the Coldains, I’ve got a lot from doing the Shawl Quest, it’s a bunch of formal ware and it’s really nice stuff

(Smed) our intent with the marketplace is to put variety that you dont see in game, but to make the in-game stuff cooler, just to make some of the marketplace stuff cool too, and people who want to chose that route can, but you dont have to.

(Jethal) Tilaru of Antonia Bayle (EQ2) asks.. Why does Sony set up zones that require higher gear to overcome, than it drops as a reward?

(Smed) My answer is.. we shouldn’t. I think in our last update in Gu60, we had some that were alittle bit too formittable for the gear, we fixed that as soon as we could.. but we dont feel that’s the situation any longer.. but it should.

(Elquin) I’m running into that problem now.. I know what she means.. I went and I did all the public quests, and I have the best public gear I could, but in order for me to continue on with some of the instances like the ascent, the pools, and stuff.. when they’re looking for people to join their group, they’re always asking what your Critical Mitigation is, and in order to increase my crit mit, I have to get yellow adornments for my gear, and I really dont want to spend my shards, but I dont want to use my shards on gear I’m just going to be throwing away as soon as I get my ry’gorr.. so I’m spending up enough so I can join groups so I can save up shards for the gear I really need.

(Jethal) then it comes back to the question about re-using adornments!

(Elquin) well you really dont wanna reuse the shards I’m using.. if I was spending 10 shards a peice for the yellow adornments to get some of my crit mit up enough to be acceptable to groups going into these shard run instances, I mean..

(Smed) just to let everyone know.. we are in the middle of re-itemizing ALL items from 20-90, and we’re going to make the content in the game more valid for the loot chests, and thats something that’s gonna happen.. it’s fair to say that what you’re saying IS accurate and something we wanna to fix.

(Jethal) and there’s also going to be the re-tooling.. if you have sword that has Dex, but you want strength.. you’re going to be able to retool it soon

(Smed) In my opinion, the tutorial was about the best part, as far as getting new people into the game.. I know that’s not gonna be a popular answer, but the reason I’m proud of that, is because.. even though a lot of EQ1 players was “yah yah yeah, why do I have to go through this stupid thing” we were able to get a lot of new people into the game and really get them through content and understanding what an MMO is.. I feel really good about that. and the reason is.. let’s face it EQ1 was a very hard and arcane kind of thing to get into and we really wanted to go out of our way to get some polish in there. I’m also proud of the great job we did with the questing and voice over. Now, could we have done better? absolutely, I also like Battlegrounds and Tradeskill instances, that was very well done, but also lacked a lot of polish.

Would you come help me in a tradeskill instance for my Ry’Gorr Armor book?

(Smed) I dont think i’d be very much assistance, is the best way I can put that

(Jethal) EQ2X.Freeport.Curel asks, “Do you have any suggestions for individuals that are interested in getting into the MMO Business and possibly be as great of a success as yourself?”

(Smed) This is a good question because this is something I feel passionately about, I’m a big believer in working your way up.. I began my gaming life when I was 18 years old, programing video games, I was a programer, and I worked my ass off.. If you want to be in the Online Gaming business, I guarentee you, you can be in it, even if you have a monicom of talent, you just have to be willing to work your way up. what I would do is apply.. it’s easy to get a job as a CS Rep, or a Q/A Rep.. that is almost exclusively where we hire from.. I like the fact that at SOE we promote from within, and that works out well cause we get people who’ve been in the front lines and worked their way up and it works very well, so apply at our company, and that’s not me just saying “oh just apply”.. we’re really good about getting passionate people in our company.. and people who really want to eventually find a way in, by getting to know someone on the team, by emailing, then they let you know there’s a job opening.. and it’s just a great company to work for and a lot of fun

(Smed) Perfect example.. in fact, I personally was the one who wanted to get her in. People in our community frequently work for SOE. it’s the kind of job you have to Want to be in the business, and it’s an enormously fun and rewarding position to be in. making games. It’s not always what people expect.. they think they’re gonna coming as a tester and they say “oh I get to play games all day” not really.. you get to repeat the same bug 50 times in a row, figuring out what causes it.. but that’s how you pay your dues. I encourage them to go for it, anything is possible

(Jethal) Andriella of Antonia Bayle (EQ2) asks.. When will Planetside2 Beta open? Also comments that she is very appreciative of the interaction we players get with the SOE Team

(Smed) First off, thank you so much for being appreciative and we certainly do our best, I dont think the players realise that this is not just a part of our job, this isnt just our job, this is what we like about the jobs we have.. I thoroughy enjoy interacting with our players. I personally answer almost ever email that I get.. and.. I know the dev team feels the same way. We dont always get nice emails and more often than not, if a person can write a relatively decently worded explaination of something, even if it’s a problem, we will both answer it and do our best to fix it. Some times we get Flame Mails, I dont mind that as long as there’s not a lot of cuss words.. and that part can be tough some times. On Planetside Beta.. it’ll be up sooner than people think, but I cant give a date yet.. we’re hard at work on it right now

(Jethal) speaking toward the flames and stuff.. just so people know, I did recieve quite a few more questions that than we’re gonna cover, but some of them where damned right rude, and I’m not going there.. more than once, and I told you this offline.. I got “EverQuest2 sucks, and what are you gonna do about it?”

(Smed) I dont care, if someone thinks EQ2 sucks.. i’ll say “Great.. rather than asking what I’m gonna do to fix it.. tell me what you think we should do to fix it”. People out there who just wanna be negative and say “this game sucks, that thing sucks”.. tell us what you would do to fix it, tell me what you want, we’re giving you the game we think is great, and if players need more or need differnt things, we need to hear about it

(Jethal) and that’s one of the great things I love about your team, and that’s not me kissing your ass.. I dont kiss ass.. but, we bring up things on this show, cause we know your team listens on a regular basis.. and I dont go “Oh this is wrong, that’s wrong! what’s you gonna do about it” I always try to give constructive critisism, like “Ya know.. this isnt working out how I think it should.. this is how you can make it better..”

(Smed) people would be surprised to know that most of the team actually plays the game, and there’s a list a mile long of things we’re working on and we got X number of people and X amount of time to get things done in, while we there are all these things wrong.. we also have to put in new content.. or one of the these things that is “wrong” is we’re not putting out content fast enough. So, it’s a very interesting thing that we have to manage, the player expectation vs what we know what gotta get done, and there’s always 10 million thing to get done.

(Smed) Yes, we would consider it.. would it be any time soon? probably not.. it’s a lot of work and we have a lot of things on our plate

Please consider mailing more than one item at a time?

(Smed) this has been on the wishlist for a while now.. we avoid it because the mail system we have now needs upgrading and that needs to be done first. We’ve got a few other things in line ahead of that. The ability to send multiple items at a time would be cool

(Jethal) and not long after I suggested it BOOM.. we have exploding arrows

(Smed) ya know, a lot of the people who make the game, play the game. we’re in this business cause we love it and it’s fun.. and yet, exploding arrows and hand-grenades are baddass, and these are things we want to get done and is fun when we get to do some of them

(Jethal) before I continue with the questions, I need to ask you something on a professional level

(Jethal) you saw Lera at the fanfaire, the santa hat.. the frostfell backpack.. and always going on and on about frostfell.. she just said in the OGR channel “I am not a frostfell elf” I need you to officially declare that Lera is a Frostfell Elf

(Jethal) Matia (unknown) says:I know your kids like Free Realms, but are they also looking forward to any of the newer titles that are upcoming, and if so, which ones?

(Smed) my kids have the advantage have the advantage and the heavy disadvantage of living with me so they get to see a lot of stuff before every body else.. my son is looking forward to Planetside 2.. my daughters are looking forward to some cool stuff coming up in FreeRealms that we havent told anyone else about.. and, I have not even shown myown children EverQuestNext.. that’s how quiet we’re keeping it

(Smed) I have not shown it to my kids, it’s something that I’m keeping from them because my son a alittle to prolific, he actively plays EQ2.. though I trust him to keep his mouth shut, I’m making sure of it

(Jethal) Mykei (unknown) asks..Will EQ1 see an offine bazzar like EQ2, where you dont have to be online 24/7 to sell something?

(Smed) we’re doing some R&D on it.. and I cant promise it yet, but it’s on the list

(Jethal) Jack (unknown) asks.. I’d like to know if SOE is going to continue the trend of free to play with premium memberships rather than subscription based on all their games in the future? Is the market really swaying that way enough to warrant that?

(Smed) that is a very interesting question. the short answer is Yes, we’re going to continue free to play in the future, and could we move some current games that way? maybe.. there are no immediate plans.. we’re really talking about this stuff for our future games, but we have some other games like Vanguard, we’re exploring some stuff with. But, I beleive this trend is going very strongly in this direction.. and let me give some shout outs.. they’re not really direct competition, but, Legue of Legends.. the guys at Riot Games are really good at what they do, and they did a terrific job on Legue of Legends and they have a very interesting business model.. it’s kind of a different form of F2P.. if you dont want to pay for anything, you dont have to, you can play for free forever. I like that business model a lot. Now. it’s not an easy business model to adapt to something that requires a team size that we’ve got, and a complex MMO infastructure, it’s easier when you have one game.. this is a constant subject of discussion.. we are and people notice that we add more and more microtransaction, but I like to balance that with future games, looking closer at the subscription fees.. one size doesnt fit all and not every game will have one particular business model, and it is something we’re looking at.

(Elquin) if people get the station pass. for what, $20 you can play ALL the SOE games

(Smed) actually, it’s $19.99 but if you pay for a full year, it’s $14.99

(Elquin) if you break that down between all the SOE games, that’s incredible

(Smed) our plan is to put that it other games as well. we’re looking at some non SOE games now too, and it’s a great bargin that we think is very cool.

(Jethal) Cheddarella of Antonia Bayle (EQ2) Comments.. I’d like to see the Cherry Blossom Trees in the Plane of Knowledge (eq1) continue to bloom until the disaster in Japan is trully over and everyone has returned home.

(Smed) I think that’s an excellent idea and I will talk to the team about that.. I go to Japan all the time, well every three months, until the disaster happened and that really hit home. Some of our friends and colleges in Tokyo have family effected.. a Sony factory got half filled up with flood waters.. it’s a tough thing, so anything we can do help is something we want to do.

(Jethal) Butcherblock.Autotune asks, “Question about the PS2 EverQuest games- will we ever See an import/adaptation to be playable on the PS3?”

(Smed) ya know, we have a great team. we made a mistake, and our goal is to not let that happen again, and we really apologize for that

(Elquin) the main focus is.. it was something that everyone doing together on each server as a main goal and that was fantastic.. and gninja was in there afterward, and personally taking each person and manually updating them one at a time for six or seven hours, above and beyond the call of duty.

(Jethal) that was a fantastic responce as far as I’m concerned, instead of just taking it all down again and scraping it.. SOE tried very hard to fix the matter as fast as you could, and we appreciate that

(Elquin) you guys always try to make this right in the end.. people just need to have alittle patients and have alittle faith

(Smed) I really appreciate that.. we had egg on our face from that one, it was embarrassing, yeah.. let’s just apologize, fix it on a go-forward basis and we want to do more live events, it’s fun to watch we know the players love it and we just need to make sure mistakes like that dont happen.

(Jethal) Lazaretto, EQ2/Vanguard asks.. I’m a long time EverQuest and Vanguard player. Can you comment on your plan for Vanguard going forward? Does Vanguard have a future?

(Smed) It does have a future, hopefully, a bright one.. and we expect to be doing updates for it, we’re in the middle of assigning personal to that and executing that.. and we’re going to make that plan clear to the Vanguard player base and our goal is to start pushing Vanguard much harder. We think it’s a great game, it’s complicated based on the people we have in the company, some who were key to that are now working on other things. and some of the people we lost, and I don’t mean in a lay-off.. I mean they’re just gone from the company. so, it’s alittle harder than it first seemed.. but we have our hands around it now and we’re actively working on it.

(Jethal) personally that’s something we where hearing a lot at fan faire, when they were saying good byes to SWG.. a lot of the scuttlebutt was “is vanguard next?

(Smed) it’s not..and yea know, it’s interesting.. Star Wars Galaxies.. it’s a different scenerio because the game is licensed.. and with EverQuest.. for example.. EQoA for the PS2.. most of your players have never even heard of it.. never had a sub base.. a bit of an experimental title. released around the same time they released the network adapter for the PS2.. so saying it was ahead of it’s time is being polite. that game is still up and running.. the only other game we ever turned off was the Matrix.. and that was not our title to begin with and it never really got off the ground.. we got it as part of a DC deal. Our core EQ titles and Vanguard, which is not ours, are not things we wanna turn off.. our intent is to run them as long as they’re viable. At some point, if you’re not updating the game.. you just keep the lights on and keep up wth CS.. but with Vangard, there’s a real posibility to bring new people into the game and we want to do that, we want to update the game and ad some new content and fix some things and we think people are going to be pleased.

(Jethal) that brings me to this.. its a subject I bring up every year at fan faire and I get different answers from different people.. and that’s.. advertising

(Jethal) the last time I saw an EverQuest was when the plane of knowledge was released, I was watching Independance Day in a movie theater and I saw an EQ trailer. but that’s the last time ive seen any evequest advertising

(Smed) oh, there’s advertising all over the place, there has been for a long time, you have to be in the right place at the right time to see it.. when are existing players are complaining about advertising it’s because they want to see more people come in to the game.. we have a very good ad program that we’re scheduling for later this year for EQ2, I think you’ll be pleased with it, and we want to bring a lot more players into the game

(Jethal) if it’s a matter of needing a video made, ask Elquin, she’ll do it!

(Smed) we’ve got great assests, and around the launch of EQ2x we did a big ad push.. so it’s out there. more and more it’s going online now.

(Jethal) oh yes, I have seen banners for EQ2 quite abit, I just dont see anything offline

(Smed) aside from maybe in the future for other games.. maybe EQ2.. you’re not gonna see a lot of offline games. the days of print ads are over

(Jethal) well, I mean like trailers, or TV.. isnt SOE an offshoot of Sony Pictures?

(Smed) we used to be.. we’re now a part of the Sony Playstation Group, under Kazuo Hirai

(Jethal) ahh, my comment was GOING to be.. tell the guys at Sony Pictures to throw us in a movie once in a while

(Smed) actualy , there is, still, an EverQuest movie in developement.. not in terribly Active development.. but it actualy has gotten to the stage where we have a script and everything, and it’s still potentally going to be made

(Jethal) I thought you guys had just given up on that, we hadn’t heard anything for years about that

(Smed) we;re with Sony Pictures for like 8 years. on again off again.. we all had dreams in our head of Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit.. we want to make sure we dont make a Dugeons and Dragons movie..

(Smed) well that depends.. Damon? I dont know, may not be such a bad thing.. just kidding

(Jethal) <in a movie announcer voice> Starring every Wayan Brother we could get ahold of.. coming this summer..

(Smed) well, though it’s not a big active movie right now, I think as we come closer to the launch of EQNext, that subject will come up.. because the marketing we’re going to around that title, will be epic. that’s the time when that topic will be resurrected

(Jethal) now here’s my idea for you.. to pass on to who ever does these things, and Elquin & The Legion of Kithicor knew this was coming.. (Elquin chuckles) Bloody Kithicor, I think, would make a wonderful freakin movie.. and you can tie it to the release of a new Kithicor Zone

(Jethal) I’ve been getting quite a few /tells from people and in the offine chat channel.. and I think I know the answer to this.. With the return of Freeport and the revamp of Qeynos.. can we expect the return of the Islands of Refuge?

(Smed) *long pause* I gotta be careful how I answer this.. umm.. Maybe.. would be the answer I’ll give.. I’m not really sure where Dave (Georgenson) is gonna land on this one.. so i’ll leave that for him to answer

(Jethal) Personally, I feel the current tutorial system out in Halas is good.. but I got a problem with lumping everyone together in one area..

(Smed) this is an interesting philosophical debate.. I prefer the old EverQuest1 way of doing things, where you have a lot of different starting places and radically different, by race.. in fact i’d love it if it where by Race and by Class, that would be the ultimate.. our Goal long-term, and we have a lot of stuff planned for EverQuest2, for a long time to come.. but our goal long-term is to really re-do the new player experiance and let people start off in Qeynos or Freeport, and make them these awesome quest hubs to give people a huge reason to go there

(Jethal) Expecially if you could do it Class wise that would be awesome.. one of the things I miss was when you hit level 20. you’d have to choose “do I wanna be a ranger, a bard, a rogue?” that was fantastic..

(Smed) the problem with MMO’s is that.. over time we have to change the game based on the player based that’s coming in, so, think about a game like EverQuest 1 which now 13 years old and you’re talking about.. it’s radically different than it was at the start, and the mass of the user base moves both in level, and in age.. the move in time in their own lives so can play a lot less or more, depending on their life circumstances, so we have to craft the game to the audeince that we have, and the audeince tht we want to attract so it makes it really tough. When you go into a newbie zone and you see it empty, it’s not good for an MMO, so we’re tryhing to fix it.. so solving that problem is not easy

(Jethal) that’s one thing that’s heartbreaking for me.. I love EverQuest.. I was playing 40+ hours a week.. and now every once in a while I log in just to see how things are going, and it seems empty.. I go to rivervale or the commonlands and there’s like.. if I see anyone, they’re just traveling to go somewhere else

(Jethal) write this one down.. I think the old starting areas should be revamped to be high end areas

(Smed) we’ve actually talked about that.. and those are the kind of things that I think you can see as games age.. you have to reuse content, some of that content needs to be redone. God, the original Qeynos.. I remember like it was yesterday when we were making it.. we used this horrible tool.. it was hideous to make that zone with.. and the guys that made that stuff and never made games before and using that horrible tool.. it was amazingly difficult to do.. and what they got out of it was truley amazing. when you’re making Madden, and you’re on Madden 2012.. is an awesome game.. or 2011 is an awesome, but it’s not the same.. players in those type of games, they play the same static content.. then the next year they move on to the next version.. and it’s not true with our game. it’s quite a connumdrum for us to be able to go back and re-do content.

(Jethal) and I just have to comment, because this IS the Jethal Silverwing Show.. I had to mute my mic when you talked about EverQuest being 13 years old and going through changes.. the only thing that went through my mind was.. it’s getting lumps and hair in weird place.. EverQuest 2 has to go to EverQuest1 and give it “The Talk”, ya know

(Smed) Oh yes, that one. I saw that on the massive screens at the Fan Faire, that was so awesome, that was actually very cool to see, I think people really got a kick out of watching that video. people get a kick out of watching that video. that to me was the ultimate fan video

(Elquin) we crammed real hard.. the last one we did was “Fly Away” the Betrayal Song with Cheesit

(Jethal) yeah, I did a song about betraying from freeport to qeynos, supposed to be real inspiriational.. and we did a video to that a few years ago (Kyriel Doku’s Version), but people always thought it was Cheesit’s betrayal song, for when he left freeport.. so we decided, let’s remake the video using cheesit

(Elquin) and now with the use of flying mounts, it made it very creative

(Smed) to me.. the idea of fan videos in general, is the ultimate honor for us and we really enjoy watching this stuff.. some of it is funny, but some of it really touches us. People dont realise, when your making these games.. you make them in a vaccum, and the cool thing about what we do, we immediately get to see it, some times its good, some times it’s bad.. but Fan reaction, like that Live Event thing.. it crushed us. We knew we screwed up right away. But the flip side of that, when we launch a new expansion, or a big update, people get excited, we watch the boards, people get excited to play.

(Jethal) If EverQuest didnt touch US so much.. I wouldnt have 200 songs on the website

(Jethal) and most of my stuff isnt funny, I classify it as parody, cause it’s based on popular songs, but a lot of it.. like I have “Norrathian Pie” which is based on “American Pie” which is about the Shattering of Luclin.. that’s a serious song, and I did it for the love of the game.

(Jethal) I know I’ve mentioned it up on stage, and when talking with you.. if it werent for EverQuest, Elquin and I would never have met.

(Smed) I hear those kind of stories, that’s to me.. the ultimate testimate to the social glue that these games make. I dont know.. we’re just happy to be apart of that.. Do you guys know that General Council, Andy Zaffron, he hates when tell this story.. he met his wife exactly the same way

(Smed) We face a problem in, over time, when we lower stuff.. then all the people at the higher levels say “Well, back in my day.. we had to wait until 85 for that, and now you’re giving out at 40” then they get pissed.. it’s a battle that I don’t think we can win.. we’re gonna piss someone off no matter what decision we make, so.. we do our best on that and lots of times our best is based on sort of we think the mood of the players is.

(Elquin) well there are mounts for crafters, and you dont have to be high level adventurers

(Smed) plus, we put in the leapers and gliders.. and it gives themm something to strive for.. so we try to be as good as we can about nailing that, and some times we’re not always perfect.

(Jethal) and another comment, I was actually going to save it for Dave Georgeson, but.. More Lower level Content.. was in the comments I was getting (for the show)

(Smed) I think people will be pleased with future updates, that’s something we plan on specifically putting in.. you asked about advertising, well we wanna put in more stuff for low level people to play. and that’s in the future

(Smed) She (domino) could probably knit something.. probably pretty amazing and put it into mass production, she’s a crafter in real life and she’s probably one of the better cooks that i’ve ever met, she came to my office resently to give me some sort of pudding that had Guiness in it.. and to take two of my favorite things and mix them together.. oh my.. that was a fun day for me

(Jethal) Butcherblock.Autotune says, “For a New Player Tutorial is it possible to use the same method as Dragon Age 2, where the character starts off with their most powerful form to teach the player about that Class, then have the player start at level 1 after “waking”

(Smed) that’s a very interesting idea.. the problem I see with that in an MMO is.. you get a taste of the most powerful form, but you dont have the skills to utilize the power. If you need a tutorial, you probably need it explained.. Right now, one of our mandates is to build the tutorials into gameplay, so a character is not put into a “trial of the isle” perse.. it’s learning through the early game, and I’m really proud of the work we did in EQ2. I think that Isle did help a lot of newbies in the game.. but I want to do it in more of a less artificial way, so the player doesnt know they’re learning.

(Jethal) I remember the EQ1 tutorial.. when it was a completely different program

(Smed) oh my god, that thing was such a total piece of.. in fact, what was sad about that was.. at one point, we lost the code to it.

(Smed) so it was a tragic moment, really.. you dont think about this but, some of the technology that’s advanced a lot is the back up mechanisms and the sort of the source code repositories, that did not exist at any kind of decent level when we made everqueset, so we’ve lost a few things over the years.. an entertaining side effect of running the game. keep in mind, the players have played it for 13 years, we’ve been working with it for 16.. think about your PC, 16 years ago.. image that peice of crap..

(Jethal) they have Sidekicking, where the new guy is brought up to our level.. I mean you’re not the most powerful thing, but you have basic abilities.. I think that’d be a really good idea. I mean, it’d be “Let me show you, then you can work for it.. come on, let’s tackle that dragon”

(Smed) it’s an interesting question.. the same thing that I mentioned earlier about why we wouldnt. we had that discussion, I just dont remember the answer.. but I think our guys felt like, it was smarter to go down insted of up, because the newbie player didnt know what they were doing. but, if you ask me.. i’d prefer the other way (sidekicking) if your friend is level 50 and your level 1.. it makes you feel more powerful and you dont feel like your gimping your friend.

(Jethal) I think the answer to that should be “Why does EverQuest Suck”.. you tell me!

(Smed) oh believe me, i’ve gotten those emails.. and i’ve answered many of them

(Jethal) Swifthawke says.. Because of work and military obligations I have not once been able to play enough to get to max level in any of the games. Can I have a free potion to make my character lvl 90 instantly? Thought not but, doesn’t hurt to ask.

(Smed) OK, well.. I tell ya what.. let me tell you guys about a discussion we’ve been having a lot internally.. to be Very clear.. these are Discussions, we are not talking about implimenting any.. but there’s anyways the debate going around.. Should we allow characters to make a max level character once they’re already levled one?.. that’s an interesting debate.. there’s a lot of pros and cons.. the positive is, it allows people to hang out with their friends if they wanna do that.. the negative is, they’d be idiots because they dont know how to play their characters. and you know what, just about any player who works for high level will agree with that. We have experience potions that’ll allow you to get through the lower level content faster.. and we’ve made a lot of changes to make that low level content smoother and faster.. so I think if we make it posible to “Bam” you’re max level, what’st he point?

(Elquin) My arguement there, I know people who’ve created and leveled a 0 to 90 character in two weeks.. it Can be done, it’s not that difficult.. the hard part comes in knowing how to play the character and equip it it properly

(Jethal) yeah.. buzzing through levels is not gonna help you be a good healer

(Smed) I dont believe the goal is to be level 85.. to me, the goal is the journey and being with friends.. ganking newbies.. (laughter) what makes my day go better than that? it’s the feeling you get by experiencing the game.. it’s not about the ding, it’s about having fun and I guess different play for different reasons.

(Smed) Naw I like slow leveling and just enjoying the gameplay and being online and chatting with friends, that’s what makes these things fun

(Jethal) that’s what I do.. the only reason I level quickly is so I dont have to do it anymore. I”m more into the roleplay, I log in and I just chat, some days I dont even leave my house

(Smed) I’m a big time role player.. I’m a RPPVP’r.. I’m big time into, when I’m playing.. I dont like to go out of character, that to me is fun. that’s why I dont like Vent or Teamspeak..

(Jethal) and for a complete list of Smeds mains and alts, you can find that at http://kithicor.org/NoWayInHell/ – that’s why Smed’s not here in the in-game chat.. and I’m respecting that decision to not reveal his characters, we dont want people ganking him

(Jethal) I cant imagine being Brasse, cause her character IS brasse on the crushbone server

(Smed) there are a lot of people who put their characters out there.. for me, my character is a sepparate persona, and I’m not trying to be ME in the game, I wanna do something completely different, I have to be nice and friendly all day.. and at night I just wanna go “Hey, let’s go kill that guy” with my friends

(Jethal) that’s a problem for me.. because, Jethal is a duality.. first off, I have all the parodies and stuff, and the show and people expect me to be all nice.. but Jethal in game is a Demon.. he’ll fuck you up.. and that was strongly proven the last time someone betrayed the legion of Kithicor, she wanted to leave the guild and go off and do different things. OOC’ly I’m like, ok that’s fine.. how do you wanna handle it.. and she like “let’s roleplay it”.. so I summoned her to the guild hall and confronted her “so, I hear you’re associating with our enemies” and she went off.. “You legon of kithicor, ya goodie two shoes.. i’ve been working with the Freeport Scum and for you enemies” and stuff like that.. and Jethal just picked her up and whipped her into the fire pit

(Smed) now, that to me, is fun!.. now that conversation, out of game, probably would never happen because I just dont reveal who I play.. not even to our own staff and it’s funny because when I’m playing one of our games, I dont want our GM’s to know who I am.

(Smed) I believe 100%.. in fact I wont accept donations from other people.. when I’m playing I earn every single dime my character makes, I dont believe in buying it. I’ve been playing a lot of EVE online lately and will say that i’ve in Eve Universe on that.. it’s a great guild.. and I will simply not buy take any kind of ya know.. I dont like donations from other players. Now, if I’m playing (of example) Magic Online.. of course I buy there, cause that’s the whole point of the game.. I did buy LoN cards.. but I did it to play, not for the Loot. So it’s just a personal thing I have.. If I’m playing the game, I want it to be a game. However, I believe strongly that the marketplace is there for people who DO want to do those things

(Jethal) that’s always been my arguement when someone complains about the marketplace “Arg, they just want our money, Grrr” well yeah.. they’re a freakin business, number one.. and if you dont want it.. dont USE it!

(Smed) Ya know, I couldnt sum it up any better myself.. and I never understood the arguement the other way.. I personally choose to not participate in it.. what’s the point of buying the experience potion.. I’m there to play, not to speed the process up.. and that’s me. I realise a lot of players have more money than time or they just wanna play with their friends, I’m different than that and ya know.. by the way, that’s true in every game I play.

(Jethal) OK, before we end the night with you.. we have some birthdays to announce, of course i’ve posted the Birthday Trolls to your Facebook not too long ago, and we do that everyone for people’s birthdays and we do have some to announce.. Kaindah from Oasis, Ryan Antonelli (of SOE) and Autumn Roselake. So for you folks, Happy Birthday

(Jethal) OK, people are asking me to ask about EQPlayers.com or EverQuest2.com – it’s pretty much the same at this point

(Smed) Stay tune, and stay tune imenantly.. in fact, i’ve been going over it with the team, it’ll be very cool, it’ll be right.. it wont be broken, it’ll be really really good, so I think you’ll all be happy with that.

OK that ends the Interview with John Smedly, President of Sony Online Entertainment.. there was another 20 minutes to the Jethal Silverwing Show which is follows on the MP3 available at OnlineGamingRadio.com!